Etude Aux Chemins De Fer - Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Schaeffer is the credited originator of a form of music theory known as Musique concrète. Schaeffer posited a genre of music which uses acousmatic sound as a compositional tool. Put simply, this means using sounds from pretty much anything in the world (not just classically musical sounds such as those from instruments or the human voice) to create a collage of samples manipulated into a musical form.

His first composition in this style, composed in 1948, was Etude Aux Chemins De Fer or Study With Trains- today's Best Song Ever.

As you'd expect with music that rejects music, it's rather hard to describe. My personal listening experience has unfolded in two very distinct ways. When I initially sat down to listen I had put the song on in the background, and all I heard were random train noises. And something that sounded suspiciously like an angry cockatoo.

Then I listened to the song again, this time paying close attention to the rhythm and textures of the sound. You know what? I heard drums thundering along the tracks. I heard musical trills built out of the snapped and clipped whistles. They didn't always flow continuously, but they were most definitely there.

So it's not a perfectly flowing piece of music (how could it ever be?). In many ways it feels like a series of musical snapshots-brief ten seconds glimpses into the melodic rhythms flowing through the world around you, cut together into a two minute blur of the greatest intstrument of them all: Life.